1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of electronic communication. In particular, the present invention relates to methods and systems for controlling access to presence information according to a variety of different access permission types.
2. The Prior State of the Art
“Presence information” describes an availability status of a computer system or a user associated with that computer system. Presence information is useful in, for example, instant messaging in which electronic messages are rapidly communicated in a matter of seconds and often within a second. The rapid communication of instant messages facilitates real time electronic conversations among instant messaging participants. Therefore, instant messaging betters reflects the way people typically communicate over the phone or in person as compared to standard electronic mail.
One requirement for a real time conversation using instant messaging in that the participants be available for conversing. Presence information gives a participant a good idea on whether or not it would be beneficial to initiate or continue a conversation with another participant. For example, if the presence information for a given participant is “logged off”, one might not bother composing an instant message for transmission to that participant since the participant is not able to receive the instant message due to a disconnection from its instant messaging server. On the other hand, if the presence information for a given participant is “logged in”, one might venture to compose and transmit an instant message since the participant will likely receive the instant message in real time. Whether or not there is a response to the instant message depends on whether or not the receiving participant is present at his/her computer and whether or not that participant chooses to respond. However, the presence information at least gives the sender the knowledge that the instant message will likely be received by the receiving participant's computer system in real time. The presence information may give much more information regarding availability than whether the user's computer system is logged in or logged out. For example, the presence information might include “idle” indicating that even though the user is logged in, the user has not used the computer system for a while. Thus, a sender might conclude that even though the receiving computer system would receive the instant message in real time, that the user of the receiving computer system is not currently present at the computer system. Thus, the sender may elect not to compose and send an instant message since a real time reply is not likely. Other types of presence information might include, for example, “out to lunch” or “out, will be back at 3:00 pm” and so forth.
Instant messaging is but one application in which presence information may be useful. Presence information might also be useful in office tracking software which tracks whether or not employees are available. If an employee is seen as not available, someone trying to contact the person might not bother to travel to the office of that employee or place a phone call to the employee.
It may often be desirable to control access to presence information. For example, a participant might not want someone else to know whether or not the individual is logged in or out to lunch. Thus, one might want to prohibit other individuals from viewing such presence information. Conventional systems for controlling access to presence information are limited in the sense that they only allow a user to control access in one particular way. Specifically, a user may simply be granted or denied the right to view presence information. Therefore, what are desired are methods and systems for controlling access to presence information according to a variety of different access permission types.